Revolution Pamphlet (September 2020)

REVOLUTION three day FESTIVAL

OF marxist IDEAS EVOLUTIONMARXISTSTUDENT.COM ISsue 11 evolution 2020 is a three-day festival of Marx- VOICE ist ideas, with 20 sessions covering current R OF THE THE GREAT ONLY APPEAR GREAT BECAUSE WE ARE ON OUR KNEES. Revents, history, philosophy, and economics. The theme of this year’s event is A World on Fire. MARXIST STUDENT FEDERATION“ From the global COVID-19 pandemic, to the climate ca- tastrophe, to the mass movements against racism and LET US RISE - JAMES LARKIN oppression: it is clear that the system is broken. With ” capitalism in its deepest ever crisis, and with the status quo collapsing all around us, we will be discuss- ing the revolutionary ideas needed for activists looking to organise, fight, and transform the world today. TEM? ? Buy your ticket from revolutionfestival.co.uk - we hope to see you there, wherever that may be! SICK OF THIS ROTTEN SYS RESULTS day FIASCO he recent A Level fiasco has proved what we all knew, that the JOIN THE ? ruling class will throw away the lives of young people to keep don't let them Tthe status quo in place. Between this debacle and the fact that young people are being forced back into an unsafe school steal your future- environment to get the economy going again, we can see the cal- lousness with which this Conservative government is treating us. join the fight for On Thursday 10th September, the Marxist Student Federation ! is holding an online meeting to talk about how to fight back MARXISTS against the inequality in education. Speaking will be a teach- revolution er from the NEU, an English A Level student, a Scottish school student and an organiser from the MSF. The recent U-Turn of the government shows that militant action works! We Thursday 10th September 6pm need to keep this up to secure more change for young people. Join the meeting. Join the fight! Meeting ID: 898 6480 6409 Passcode: 572186 EDUCATE. AGITATE. ORGANISE. REVOLUTION marxiststudent.com

It is true that there was huge pressure the Treasury tweeted proudly about this who rule over us today. Former prime min- brought on the British state by the abolition- fact in 2018: “Millions of you helped end the ister, David Cameron, has familial roots in ist movement, both at home and in the col- slave trade through your taxes.” this wealth. Gen. Sir James Duff, an army TELL THE TRUTH onies – a movement which included many This is a message to black British people officer and MP for Banffshire in Scotland radicals. saying, “although some of your ancestors during the late 1700s, was the son of one On top of this were growing slave uprisings. were enslaved, they were eventually made of Cameron’s great-grand uncles and was The great slave revolt of 1831 in Jamaica ‘free’; and now you get to pay the families of awarded £4,101 – equivalent to more than (one of many others across the islands) those who owned them!” £3 million today – to compensate him for was a turning point for the already heavily Abolition was a sham in itself. Compensa- the 202 slaves he owned. outnumbered white settler population. tion was not enough, so the government But it is not just Cameron. You can take Marx recognised that, for the ruling class, implemented an ‘apprenticeship’ scheme in your pick of the peers who sit in the House there were limits to which slavery and mod- which slaves had to continue laboring for of Lords – and the Queen herself – many of ern machinery could be compatible. The their former masters for a period of four- whom are direct descendants from these slave might be very cheap, but ultimately to-six years in exchange for provisions: 45 mighty slave-owning families. they have no incentive to look after machin- hours a week for no pay. The wealth of Britain’s capitalist class was ery or increase productivity. At the end of The Abolition Act itself paved the way for borne from the enslavement of black peo- the day they remain a slave. A wage earner, British forces to become ‘international po- ple. Marx was right when he said that capi- meanwhile, must satisfy their boss’ expec- licemen’ on slavery. British naval squad- talism was born with “blood dripping from tation to have work the following day. rons were set up to patrol the coast of West every pore”. Marx also noted the importance of slave Africa and the Caribbean looking out for Boris Johnson and the Tories say we must revolts: illegal slavers. In reality, this was the begin- remember the past. We do: we remember “In my view, the most momentous thing ning of a new exploitation and conquering the crimes of the British ruling class, from happening in the world today is, on the one of Africa, to be redrawn in the interests of slavery to Windrush. hand, the movement among the slaves in British capitalism. The working class remembers. And from America, started by the death of Brown, and this history, we have learnt the truth: that the uk is not innocent the movement among the slaves in Russia, Remember the past the rule of a minority over the majority is the on the other…I have just seen in the Trib- The legacy of slavery lives on in our brutally most barbaric form of une that there was a new slave uprising in unequal society today. It was abolished, but life. And we must Missouri, naturally suppressed. But the sig- exploitation remains. And the exploitation fight to abolish it the prospect of trade with Africa without for about 70% of all Africans transported to nal has now been given.” of black people is therefore woven into this – completely. , having to go through the block of the Islam- the Americas. Although there were ports in system today. ic countries in the north. At this stage, al- Liverpool, Bristol, Portsmouth and Lancas- Sham abolition We see that in our statues. We see that in though trade in slaves did take place, it was ter, much of Britain did not see first-hand In fact, the abolition of the slave trade – al- the fact that the compensation of slave in small numbers. Gold was the real prize. the nature of slavery. though inconvenient for those in the busi- owners was paid by the British taxpayer In the 1470s, for example, the Portuguese Britain’s wealth came from trade, rather ness – saw the slave owners compensated up until 2015, well over 200 years later. We reached what became known as the ‘Gold than an internal economy dependent on the very handsomely. The modern equivalent see it in intergenerational poverty; housing Coast’ – Ghana. In the next period, we see labour of slaves, as was the case in Amer- of £17 billion was paid in compensation to segregation; and in cultural attitudes that the beginnings of African gold being trad- ica. The ideological defence of slavery and slave owners. perceive black people as ‘dangerous’, ‘vio- ed into Europe. At this stage, Britain could racism was therefore intensified in the This is something one might have expected lent’ and unintelligent. only look upon Portugal in envy. Eventually American states – in part due to the physi- the ruling class to shy away from. But no, That legacy is also in the faces of those though, the trade in human beings became cal presence of the plantations. the more profitable enterprise. Britain’s domination peaked between 1640 and 1807, when the British slave trade was ...so future generations do not Architect of slavery technically ‘abolished’. In the United States, In time, Britain caught up. British involve- however, slavery continued right upto and ment in the trade began around the mid- throughout the civil war, only ending in WHY I FIGHT:know hunger and poverty FIONA LALI, NATIONAL ORGANISER dle of the sixteenth century. Britain soon 1865. became a key architect of the transatlantic I’ve seen friends’ mental health collapse ly vile system that governs our world. The slave trade. Through this, it acquired the Economic motivation harry o ‘'neil The toppling of the statue of slave trader high profit levels necessary to become a The British ruling class has a misguided and leave them completely broken. All this horrors of capitalism have been laid bare Edward Colston in Bristol on 11 June has mighty capitalist power. sense of superiority on the matter of abo- MANCHESTER marxists is down to austerity measures necessitat- to me, as they have been to millions around brought to attention Britain’s involvement Companies that participated in the slave lition. It was indeed the first to do so (al- ed by the crisis of capitalism. This is suck- the globe. in the Atlantic slave trade. Although official- trade were an important part of the indus- though in reality it continued up until the was born to a heritage of Irish catho- ing funding from, and privatising, the NHS The ideas of these famous communists ly abolished in Britain in 1807, this horrific trial revolution. For the rising capitalist 1830s). lics and miners, two heavily oppressed and its mental health services. convinced me that there was a better way, trade in human beings was central to the class, the slave trade played a pivotal role However, this was not on account of some Igroups in British history. I was born the During high school I came into contact with that we could win a better world. Being in- rise of capitalism and the rise of Britain as in the expansion of the global market. In the sudden change of heart regarding the en- same year that Britain declared war on Iraq politics and social democracy. I had fre- volved in the fight gave me hope that this a world power in particular. words of Karl Marx: slavement of black people. Rather, it was and Afghanistan and I haven’t known the quent debates with a conservative friend world was not far away, that all we need is Slavery has existed throughout the history “It is slavery which has given value to the motivated purely by economic interest, as country at peace since. I was six when the over which reforms were better! Around people willing to fight with us. of class society in various places. But it is colonies, it is the colonies which have creat- the dawn of capitalist society meant that financial crash of 2008 crippled the world the age of 15 I was pushed in the direction I fight because a better world is not only understood most commonly today as the ed world trade, and world trade is the nec- slavery was less profitable than ‘free’ wage economy and pushed my already struggling of Marxism and then towards the ideas of possible but our only option. I fight so fu- barbaric episode in which humans were essary condition for large-scale machine labour. parents into redundancy. Leon Trotsky by a friend. I became aware of ture generations don’t need to know hun- brought from West Africa and transported industry. Consequently, prior to the slave A.L. Morton notes in his work, A People’s My family struggled and my dad had to the International Marxist Tendency and So- ger, poverty, and repression. to plantations in America and the Carribean. trade, the colonies sent very few products History of England: “Profitable as the slave leave for long periods of time just to pay the cialist Appeal at this time and would eventu- In the early 15th century, Portugal ‘explored’ to the Old World, and did not noticeably trade proved during the 18th century, its bills. This left my mother to raise two chil- ally join a year or so later. the coast of Africa, primarily in search of change the face of the world.” suppression in the 19th century was even dren alone whilst working long hours in a One of my favourite quotes of all time is Join Socialist Appeal! gold. It was the first European country to Portugal and Britain were the two most ‘suc- more profitable.” Slavery, in short, simply repetitive office job. Lenin’s ‘capitalism is horror without end’. It Join the Marxist Student Federation! do so. And the Portuguese quickly enjoyed cessful’ slave-trading countries, accounting became uneconomical. concisely captures the essence of the tru- Fight for Socialism in our lifetime! REVOLUTION marxiststudent.com